Disease relevance of gag-abl

• We tested the effects of these mutations both on the kinase activity of the gag-abl fusion protein encoded by the provirus and on the ability of the provirus to transform NIH 3T3 fibroblasts [1].
• To simplify assessment of the mutant kinases, we expressed the A-MuLV-encoded kinase in the bacterial expression vector pATH2, resulting in production of a trpE-gag-abl fusion protein in Escherichia coli [1].
• This methodology was confirmed by the demonstration that in cells transformed by the Abelson murine leukemia virus (A-MuLV) the gag-abl kinase activity was recovered equally from the membrane and cytosolic fractions, in agreement with previous studies [2].
• These results suggest that, while the gag-abl translation products of these two independent isolates of transforming retrovirus are highly related structurally and functionally, the differences in structure contribute to differences in enzyme activity [3].

High impact information on gag-abl

• From the nucleotide sequence, we have predicted the amino acid sequence of p120gag-abl, the product of the A-MuLV gag-abl hybrid gene [4].
• In addition to the gag-abl sequence, the proviral genome was found to contain an additional open reading frame that could code for an 18,000-dalton protein, whose role is at present undetermined [4].
• The HZ2-FeSV has a 6.8 kb-viral genome with the structure: 5' delta gag-abl-delta pol-delta env 3'. The abl insert, which is 1.4 kb, is located 1.9 kb from the 5' end and 3.5 kb from the 3' end of the viral genome [5].

References